Monday Photo Shoot: Stones

I love stones. These particular ones are at Natural Stone Bridge in the Adirondacks, part of the oldest stone outcroppings in North America. We're talking old, as in a billion years.

The one in the first photo contains a little pool under a natural spring that trickles out of a mountain.

This second one is about three feet across and was trapped in a pothole during floodier times.


For more entries in the weekly meme, Check out Carly's Ellipsis.

*Natural Stone Bridge and Caves

Round Robins: Not of This Season

The idea this time around is to show something from another season. It was 16 degrees below zero when I left for work last week, and we haven't seen a boat, liquid water, or blue sky like this in ages.

Check out the rest of the entries at Round Robins Photo Challenge, and escape the winter blahs.

Photo Hunt: Chipped

One of these snowflakes is chipped. Can you find it? (Click to enlarge, if you don't spot it right away.*) All of them are lying on the chipped paint of the front porch railing.

It's been a while since I've played, and I've missed it! See all the other entries at Photo Hunt.

*P.S. I've made a note on the Flickr copy to show where it is.

Sepia Scenes: Drawbridge

I always look forward to seeing the towers of the raiload drawbridge visible from Route 90 in Cleveland. To me, it looks like something from a fantasy world, especially with the snow swirling by. I tried straightening it in Elements, but decided it looked better angled.

See more entries at Sepia Scenes.

Monday Photo Shoot: "Youngins"

Carly at Ellipsis hosts the Monday Photo Shoot, and this week our challenge is to photograph young things--animal, vegetable, or mineral. What better opportunity to show off my first grand-nephew? The little guy is a year old already.

This was a high ISO shot, very noisy and a bit out of focus. I cropped out all but the face and added brushstrokes with Elements to see if I could salvage it. What do you think?

Be sure to stop by at Carly's place to see the other entries!

Ruby Tuesday: Now and Then

Could two doors be more different? And yet here they are, side by side on the same old brick building. I always wonder what's behind door number one.

Below is the detail of the top of the old doorway. I think the texture looks like suns and galaxies in space.
*Click to enlarge

Visit Mary's place, Work of the Poet, for more Ruby Tuesday photos.

Round Robins: Resolutions

It's been a while since I've done a Round Robin challenge, and the new year seems like a good time to get back into the swing of things.

The assignment this time is to choose three things we'd like to photograph or techniques we'd like to learn. We were to choose one and present it this week, and offer the other two as suggestions for upcoming challenges.

One thing I'd like to learn to do is panning, or following a moving object with the camera so that it stays in focus while the background blurs, giving a sense of motion. I tried it while my son flew his model airplane this fall, without much success. This shot might not have been bad if I had had more of the ground in the frame. Let's call this challenge "Greased Lightning!"

And here are my other two:

The Color Purple. You don't see it much, and it's hard to capture in a photo. You'll have to look around to find it, and you'll have to get your settings right. But it is the color of royalty and magic, so the possibilities could be worth the hunt.

Door Number Three. I love doors of all sorts: old ones, new ones, hidden ones, forgotten ones. How about doing a set of three, each with its own personality and story?

As always, there's more to see over at Round Robins: Camera Resolutions.

Doctors Drop Their Pants on Everest

Irresistible title, huh? It sucked me in, too.

I have a day off today, and I have a to-do list that would take a week to do. So I'm just sitting here Web surfing and watching the snow come down. Yeah. I'm a slacker. I'm OK with it.

So the title comes from the Discover Magazine website, and it's about a group of doctors doing a study on how much oxygen deprivation a body can take before going down for a dirt nap. The dropping trou part comes in when they draw blood from their groin areas and hand the samples to the Sherpas to schlep down the mountain for testing. If you ask me, the big round of applause should always go to the Sherpas.

There is also a story there about how horny mosquitoes buzz in harmony to produce a perfect fifth with an overtone. This is much more interesting than I ever thought mosquitoes could be, but I still hate them.

And then you have your transgenic goats producing pharmaceutical milk ... self reassembling robots (Terminators, anyone?) ... and last but so not least, zombie animals and their mind-controlling parasites.

And it isn't even noon yet. I'm gonna need more cocoa.

Sepia Scenes: (18)40 Winks

This was taken at the Adirondack Museum last summer. At first glance, I thought the old stage coach driver was a real guy.

I used the one-click editor, but fiddled with the saturation and light/dark a bit in the Cannon ZoomBrowser. I did open it in Elements to see if I could soften the background or take out those lines in it (whatever the heck they were), but gave up before I figured out how. I need a class or something.

Anyhow, the rest of the entries are over at Mary's place, Sepia Scenes.

Ruby Tuesday: Signs of Red

My favorite farm market. Notice the bonus touch of ruby red on the left weathervane?

Check out Work of the Poet for more Ruby Tuesday.

Monday Photo Shoot: Watching the Clock

Carly at Ellipsis hosts the Monday Photo Shoot, and has asked us this week to show off our clocks in honor of the new year. So here's one that has stood the test of time.

It's an eighteen-foot-tall 1895 Seth Thomas No.5 street clock, and one of these has occupied this spot in Mishawaka Indiana since 1871. Vintage replacements were installed in 1938 and again in 1994, due to unfortunate encounters between their predecessors and passing traffic. Replacing them is not an easy project, as these haven't been made in over a hundred years.

This particular one is the source of some local controversy. It is the official city timekeeper, but only one side of it is working. Economic woes have delayed the needed repairs. I guess you could say it's a sign of the times.

Be sure to click over to Monday Photo Shoot to see what everyone else found.

*P.S. Forgot about the extra credit, which was to show a clock with my favorite time of the day. There's no photo, and it depends on which day. On workdays, it's around 4:30PM to 5:30PM, the time I turn into the end of my driveway and speed through the woods to the Bat Cave. On days off, it's whatever time shows on the clock when I'm done sleeping.

Sepia Scenes: Sisters

Happy New Year!
I hope you're all having a wonderful time with friends and family.

This is a photo I've used before, in color. It struck me as something that might be even better in sepia, and I think it actually is.

This is the one-click AOL editor again, as I've been way short on time lately.


Here's the color version from an older post.



*More entries here: Sepia Scenes.